BORDLEY, John Beale, agricultural writer, born in Annapolis, Maryland, 11 February 1727; died in Philadelphia, 26 January 1804. He was a lawyer by profession, was prothonotary of Baltimore County in 1753-'66, judge of the provincial court in 1766 and of the admiralty court in 1767-'76, and a commissioner to fix the boundary-line between Maryland and Delaware in 1768. He was one of the few members of the provincial councils who sympathized with the movement for independence. Removing to Philadelphia in 1793, he established there the first agricultural society in the United States. By his experiments upon his estate in Wye island, Chesapeake bay, and by his writings, he was instrumental in diffusing a knowledge of the art of husbandry. He published "Forsyth on Fruit-Trees, with Notes" ; "On Rotation of Crops" (1792); " Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural Affairs, with Plates" (1799-1801); and "A View of the Courses of Crops in England and Maryland" (1784).